l bill of fare is due chiefly to two causes; first, the popular
idea that nuts are highly indigestible, and second, their comparatively
high price.

The notion that nuts are difficult of digestion has really no foundation
in fact. The idea is probably the natural outgrowth of the custom of
eating nuts at the close of a meal when an abundance, more likely a
superabundance, of highly nutritious foods has already been eaten and
the equally injurious custom of eating nuts between meals. Neglect of
thorough mastication must also be mentioned as a possible cause of
indigestion following the use of nuts. Nuts are generally eaten dry and
have a firm hard flesh which requires thorough use of the organs of
mastication to prepare them for the action of the several digestive
juices. Experiments made in Germany showed that nuts are not digested at
all but pass through the alimentary canal like foreign bodies unless
reduced to a smooth paste in the mouth. Particles of nuts the size of
small seeds wholly escaped digestion.

Having been for more than fifty years actively interested in promoting
the use of nuts as a staple food, I have given considerable thought and
study to their dietetic value and have made many experiments. About
twenty-five years ago it occurred to me that one of the above objections
to the extensive dietetic use of nuts might be overcome by mechanical
preparation of the nut before serving so as to reduce it to a smooth
paste and thus insure the preparation for digestion which the average
eater is prone to neglect. The result was a product which I called
peanut butter. I was much surprised at the readiness with which the
product sprang into public favor. Several years ago I was informed by a
wholesale grocer of Chicago that the firm's sales of peanut butter
amounted on an average to a carload a week. I think it is safe to
estimate that not less than one thousand carloads of this product are
annually consumed in this country. The increased demand for peanuts for
making peanut butter led to the development of "corners" in the peanut
market and more than doubled the price and must have had an equally
marked influence upon the annual production.

I am citing my experience with the peanut not for the purpose of
recommending this product, for I am obliged to confess that I was soon
compelled to abandon the use of peanut butter prepared from roasted
nuts, for the reason that the process of roasting renders the nut
indig